CCR

I don't know why I was nervous filming this, but here it is.

Project links:

Video

Website

Postcard
In case the link to the postcard doesn’t work, here’s a picture:

Final Update

Seems crazy that our project is almost complete... but here’s an update:

Twitter 

Facebook

Both promote the film by discussing actors, behind the scenes, countdown, polls, and featuring fake critic quotes. All of these methods are utilized to create an engaging and personal experience with fans.

In addition, we created a 2 minute “Behind The Scenes” video which includes an interview of our two leading actors. We thought this would be a great addition to our advertisement for the film, and it endorses conventions since we saw other companies offer the same footage. This is it’s own separate tab on the website that will be uploaded tomorrow. (Click Here For Link to BTS)

Website is complete and will be up in the next blog post. I devoted a lot of time to make sure the layout is perfect, and I’m proud to say I’m really proud of it. 

Paloma finished our post card and I’m OBSESSED with how it turned out (will also be in the next post).

Overall this was a very fun experience, and I’m sad that my time in Media Studies is coming to an end. Over the past two years, I’ve learned a lot from class, mistakes, and from other students. This class not only helped me develop an appreciation for the world of media, but it has also helped me decide what I wanted to study. Obviously this project won’t be the last piece I create, so I’ll see you guys in the future.

Instagram

So part of this project includes a marketing component for how the short film will be advertised. As we stated before, we want to create an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube account since those are the mainstream social media platforms and a huge part of our target audience utilized those platforms. 

I tried to find examples for websites that advertise one short film, but it was impossible to find. Most short films didn’t have an Instagram, but due to the fact that it’s the 2nd most popular social media site, I think it’s important to have one. Instead, I looked for inspiration in Instagram pages for movies. Here, they advertised their actors, put up posters, and included still shots from the movie.

Taking in that information, plus the pictures Sofi sent me, here is our link to our Instagram! 

Group Discussion

So yesterday was our second (and last) group discussion before our projects are due. When it was my turn to present, I showed my group our website and they loved the design. They said the pictures looked as if they were from the original unedited layout. 

They also thought the “Behind The Scenes” was a good idea, and great way to promote the film, but Zoey suggested to leave that for last in case I don’t have time. Other than that, they agreed with all of the tabs that we had chosen and thought it was very well structured and organized.

When we started talking about the film, they liked the idea, but they didn’t love the title. Sandra suggested it would be a good idea to chose a short title that didn’t give too much information about the twist ending, which I think would be a great idea. Like I mentioned previously, I didn’t love the title for our film, so hopefully we can come up with something else.

The  majority of our conversation dealt with our pamphlet. My group thought we needed a darker filter to stick to the stereotype of sci-fi, plus made it somewhat mysterious. When I told Sofia and Paloma, they disagreed because they thought it was the opposite for what we wanted to achieve. For the majority of our film, we wanted to maintain a yellow color scheme because yellow symbolizes betrayal and hope, which is what the characters are feeling. Hence, they wanted to keep the same theme with the pamphlet. What we did agree on, is that we’re going to try to find a different image because the one we have right now just isn’t working. However, Sofia just sent us a variety of still shots from our footage, so hopefully we’ll be able to choose an image from the ones she sent... I’ll keep you posted

Recap

So this entire week, everyone’s beeen working on some different component about the website.

I wrote the “abouts” for the cast and crew plus edited everyone’s pictures for the website. I’m going to wait to upload it with the rest of the pictures, but for now that’s out of the way. So far this is they layout we are sticking with:

The only issue we are having is with the title. Sofi and I really love the title “Point of Fools” because it’s a play on words for “Point in Time” and also symbolizes the moment when the couple is fooled. However, Paloma wanted the title Round 2 (which Sofi and I think it’s terrible) and since we didn’t agree with her, she refuses to consider our option. As a result, we randomly picked “All Bets Are Off” out of a hat, and it’s supposed to represent that all bets are off on their marriage. Fingers crossed, this will change.

Sofia and Ricardo ended editing the video, so now all we have to focus on is our marketing plan. Paloma has the layout for our pamphlet, but we can’t come to an agreement for what we want it to be. In my opinion, it looks too must like a poster or picture. This is what it looks like so far:

I wish we would’ve taken a closer shot so you could see the devices, but sadly we have to work with what we have since we can’t ask them to drive up again. Wish us luck!

Part Two

Filming is done, now comes the hard part of the project. Here’s how the rest of the two weeks are going to play out:

Tomorrow in class I’m going to edit the photography and start editing the website. The layout is very similar to the ones I researched previously. The tabs on the page are as follows:

Home w/ links to (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube), About, Cast, Crew, Film, Gallery, Poster, Behind the Scenes (BTS)

At the same time, Sofi will focus on editing while Paloma finishes up the post card. Afterwards, I’m going to focus on editing the BTS utilizing footage we recorded while filming, as well as interviews from our leading actors. The style I hope to demonstrate would be almost like a short documentary showing the process of making the film. It would only be from 1-2 minutes long, and will be placed on the website to allow fans to learn a little more about the production process. I’ll conduct further research about what techniques are used in a behind the scenes, but for now our main emphasis will be on placing information and pictures on to our various sites.

The platforms we have chosen to carry out our marketing campaigns are the website (obviously), and the social media sites that were described above. The reason why we chose to go with these platforms is because they are the most popular social media platforms, and the websites I researched used the same pages. Sofia brought up the idea to use tumblr, but I’m not too sure if a blog would be a good place to advertise a short film. One thing we’re doing differently from the rest of the webpages is that we are not using Vimeo. Although Vimeo is a great site to post videos on, we feel that it’s not popular enough to reach our target audience. As we started before, we are targeting females in their late teens and early twenties, which are known to use the mainstream social media accounts heavily. On the other hand, Vimeo appeals to amateur filmmakers, which is a much smaller audience that does not have as much female involvement. Therefore, we think YouTube would be a better site to distribute our video (at least for now).

Our goal is to finish editing this week so next week we can devote our final touches to marketing. Also, we can’t forget about our individual CCRs, which are a mini project within themselves. Wish us luck!